Building 3D Models with
modo 701
Learn the art of next generation 3D content creation
with step-by-step instructions from a real-world pro
Juan Jiménez García
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First published: October 2013
Production Reference: 1181013
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Credits
Author
Juan Jiménez García
Reviewers
Oliver Caiden
Martin Kupski
Antonio De Lorenzo
Charles Wardlaw
Acquisition Editors
Anthony Albuquerque
Kartikey Pandey
Lead Technical Editor
Foreword
Dear readers, starting to work with powerful and complex software of any kind may be a reason for countless moments of frustration. Although modo from Luxology is a modern application with a beautiful and streamlined user interface, the new-user-frustration aspect is not new. If you want to avoid these moments and shorten your learning curve dramatically, then you have come to the right place. Juan Jiménez shares his experience, and will help you to quickly be productive and not waste time fighting the tool. His workflow has been tested and iteratively refined in many real-life projects. Be it cars, furniture, machinery, interior architectural design and visualization, or many other areas, Juan covers a broad range in the computer graphics world. This book is not about theory, it is about how to achieve results, get the job done, and meet deadlines. Only years of experience, intense and passionate use of this great software for a long time, can lead to a book like this. I wish I had access to such a source of inspiration when I started to work with modo. It would have shortened my learning curve a lot as well.
Peter Stammbach,
modo YouTube guru, Switzerland
About the Author
Juan Jiménez García
started to doodle with 3D software back in 2004, with Lightwave 6. He then started to specialize in modeling, specially hard surface modeling, such as cars, furniture, all kinds of machines and engineering related stuff, and so on. He joined a small broadcasting company in his town, as a camera operator, and in charge of all CG imagery. He also started to explore CG for architectural works. In his spare time, he joined forces with some video game modding groups dedicated to driving simulations, modeling several racing cars for games such as Rfactor and Nascar Racing.Once he left that company during the middle of 2012, he started to try to make himself visible in the field of interior design, offering visualization services for interior designers. He then opened his own webpage www.factor3d.com, and brand named Factor3D, which he still develops in the market of CG visualization for several customers in his area, conducting live workshops, and giving private formation with the help of some old work companions, launching a formation center in his town to promote the use of modo.
Many thanks to David, the guy who put a copy of Lightwave in my hands back in the old days and fed my passion for 3D art.
Many thanks to Newtek for developing my beloved Lightwave, which made me learn the basics of 3D imaging.
Many thanks to Brad Peebler and the rest of the guys from Luxology for producing such state of the art piece of software like modo. You guys rock.
About the Reviewers
Oliver Caiden
is a compositor working at MPC in London.Martin Kupski
is a digital artist who lives in Malmö, Sweden, and was born in 1986. He has worked in the VFX field for several years on everything from small commercials, to big Hollywood productions. He learned the basics at a SOFE (School of Future Entertainment) and honed the skills with the help of tutorials and experience.Martin has had a lot of different roles, but the skills he has developed the most are Matte painting, compositing, and 3D modeling.
Martin has worked as a freelancer for most of his career. The companies he has worked for include Ghost, Dneg, Postyr, and Gimmick to mention a few. Recently, he has also been teaching the art of Matte painting at Campus i12 in Eksjö. At the time of writing, Martin works at an animation studio called Wilfilm in Copenhagen, as a generalist.
Antonio De Lorenzo
is 46 years old and has been working in the CG industry for over 20 years. He is the co-founder of an Italian company called the Imago Edizioni, with his brother Francesco De Lorenzo. They publish magazines, books, and lead as editors, a CGI portal (www.imaginaction.com), with forums for the 2D and 3D graphics community in Italy. He has translated four books about ZBrush, and other three for 3DS Max from English, and other graphics packages. He teaches CGI to universities and private schools, and works as a school manager, supervisor, and coordinator for some 3D courses, and as a teacher for single 3D matter too.Imago Edizioni makes the production betatester for a lot of worldwide 3D packages, and is active in 3D production, including still images and animations for various 3D visualization fields, from Medicine to TV, from Architecture to Jewel Design and Digital Nature.
Charles Wardlaw
is a Character Technical Director for film and television,including work on Resident Evil: Retribution, Mama, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. He uses Python and C++ for creating custom rigging solutions to solve problems and facilitate animator workflows, and enjoys the challenges present in each new script. In his off hours he enjoys photography, watches cartoons from the 80's, attempts to draw, maintains the tradigiTOOLS animation plugin for Maya, for FUNhouse Interactive, and teaches his daughter how to box.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Knowing the Interface
5
Using viewports 6
Controlling the viewports 7 Customizing the viewport quad 9
Working with tabs 12
Working with the Model Quad tab 12 Working with the Render tab 13
Understanding the Tools panel 14
Using the Basic tab 15
Using the Vertex/Edge/Polygon tabs 15
The Vertex tab 16
The Edge tab 17
The Polygon tab 19
Using the Duplicate tab 22 Using the Mesh Edit tab 24
Understanding the Info panel 27
Using the Item List panel 28 Using the Shading panel 28 Using the Properties panel 29
Working with selection methods 30
The polygon/vertex/edge modes 30 Making quick selections 30 Using the Lasso selection tool 32
Hiding and unhiding 33
Chapter 2: Beginning with Modeling
35
What's under the modeling tab? 35
Layers – organizing your scene 36 Moving, scaling, and rotating 37
Action centers 38
Falloffs 39
Work planes 40
Basic modeling 41
Primitives 41
Free form shapes 42
The Subdivide tool 44
The Bevel tool 45
The Extrude tool 46
The Bridge tool 46
The Slice tool 48
The Thicken tool 48
Modifying your mesh 50
The Element move tool 50
The Flex tool 52
The Sculpt tool 54
Making copies 55
The Mirror tool 55
The Clone tool 56
Making arrays 58
Editing the mesh 59
Curve Slice and Loop Slice 59 Booleans 62 Drills 63
Mesh Cleanup 65
Working with vertices 66
Centering 67
Setting position 67
Merging 68
Working with edges 68
Table of Contents
[ iii ]
Chapter 3: Texturing and Materials
73
What is a material? 73
What is a texture? 73
Using materials 75
Creating a material 75
Types of materials 76
Using diffuse materials 77 Using glossy materials 78 Using specular materials 79 Using emitter materials 80 Understanding the base shader and base material properties 81
The base shader properties 82
The base material properties 83
Using the preset library 83
Manual creation of a material 85
Using textures 86
Types of projection 86
Planar projection 87
Cubic projection 89
Spherical projection 90
UV mapping 92
How to apply textures 93
Special effects 96
Bump mapping 96
Applying bump mapping 97
Transparencies 98
Applying alpha mapping 99
Specular maps 100
Fresnel 101 Tweaking reflection/fresnel properties 102 Summary 103
Chapter 4: Illuminating a Scene
105
Working with lights 105
Adding a light 106
Setting the type of a light 107
Placing lights 108
Enabling/disabling lights 109
Types of light 109
Spot Light 110
Area light 114
Cylinder light 116
Portals 118
Illuminating a scene 120
Working with previews 121
Preview modes 122
Quality 122
Full Resolution 123
The RayGL view 123
Cool and warm 124
Key lights 126
Fill lights 127
Contours 128
Summary 130
Chapter 5: Preparing a Shot
131
Placing a camera 131
Working with the Rule of Thirds 133
Understanding the field of view 136
Tilting the shot 138
Fixing the verticals 139
Adding depth using DOF 142
When to use it 143
When to avoid it 144
How to create it 146
Choosing the correct image size 149
Size and image depth (dpi) 149 Rendering for printing 150 Rendering for digital media 151
Summary 152
Chapter 6: Rendering your Scene
153
Understanding indirect illumination 154
Montecarlo versus irradiance caching 160
Using the montecarlo method 160 The irradiance caching method 162
Using HDRI illumination 162
Using the physical sky simulation 164
Adding sunlight 165
Setting up the render 166
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Irradiance rays 167
Antialiasing 167
Rendering with the preview window 168
Working with the render window 171
Input white level and tone mapping 173
Bloom and vignette 174
Render region 178
Summary 180
Chapter 7: The Post-production Phase
181
What are render outputs 181
Isolating materials with the surface ID output 184
The depth output 185
The ambient occlusion output 186
Working the render into Photoshop 188
Blend modes 189
Basic corrections 189
Levels 190 Curves 191 Brightness/contrast 193
Color correction 195
Saturation 195
Working with adjustment layers 196
Selective enhancing 198
A quick look at the blend modes 200
Adding special effects 201
Bloom (general and selective) 201
The bleach bypass 204
Depth of field 205
Vignetting 207 Noise 209
A case study 210
Summary 214
Preface
There are always a lot of people asking me very basic questions about my work in 3D art.
Sadly, learning how to use 3D software can be tedious and difficult, especially if you base your advances in self learning, which can imply double the effort. This book will focus on those kind of people who want to grow their skills in Luxology modo, but find the information about this software sometimes too hard to find or too technical for a beginner.
As that was the case when I started developing my skills in 3D art, I want to help others to understand the basics of this great piece of software, as I wanted to have in my early days. So, what you will find here is less technical information, and more practical definitions and examples, straight to the point and without unnecessary and confusing terminology.
I hope you all enjoy this book the same way as I enjoyed, writing it for you.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Knowing the Interface, introduces the general use of the software's interface.
Chapter 2, Beginning with Modeling, will teach the use of the modeling tools.
Chapter 3, Texturing and Materials, covers the use of textures and materials as we see them in the real world.
Chapter 5, Preparing a Shot, covers many good practices to be carried out at the time of taking a picture of your scene.
Chapter 6, Rendering your Scene, will teach you how to set up your scene to get the best results.
Chapter 7, The Post-production Phase, covers a great number of methods to enhance your final render.
What you need for this book
You will need the following for the book:
• Luxology modo 701
• Adobe Photoshop CS3 or higher
Who this book is for
People looking for an introduction to the world of 3D art, newcomers, or those with a little knowledge of using 3D software in general, or Luxology modo in particular.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: '"I renamed mine to depth.'"
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: '"and a third button called RAY GL, which is off by default'".
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Preface
[ 3 ]
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Questions
Knowing the Interface
Before we put our hands on the software, let's spend a few minutes learning how modo is organized so that we can use its features wisely. Learning how modo works as a whole can help us optimize our workflow. So, double-click on your modo shortcut and let's see what's in there.
In this chapter, we will cover the following aspects:
• Using the viewports • Working with tabs
Using viewports
If you have some previous experience with 3D software, you will notice a typical 3D interface and a big workspace showing a single perspective view surrounded by a bunch of buttons. If you are new to all this, then it's time to explain what this is all about.
First of all, take a look at what will be the main workspace you will be using. A single perspective visor occupies the main part of the screen. That's a perspective view of your model. If you look at the top of it, you will see the information you need to identify it.
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For the first button, you will notice there is a difference in each viewport. I'm sure you have guessed the meaning of it. It's telling you what view you are seeing in each one. That's Top for the top view, Perspective for the perspective view, and so on. We will see their uses in the customizing part.
These viewports (and the layout of viewports) are customizable, as we will see later. But for now, just know that you have all the information for the visual control of your scene.
Controlling the viewports
Let's focus on controlling the viewports. Viewports are not fixed in any way. You can manipulate them, change their size, position, maximize/minimize them, change their properties, and so on. That's what the control area—on the top-right of each visor—is for. Since this section will talk about controlling the viewport, we will cover the use of the top-right controls.
If you look at the previous screenshot, there are a number of icons, some of them very clear about their function and others not. Let me explain what each of them do:
The first icon is for panning. You can click-and-drag this icon to pan over the image.
The rotating tool
The second is for rotating. Click-and-drag over this icon to rotate the image. Of course, this button only works in a perspective or camera visor, since the rest of the views are unable to rotate, due to its very nature.
The zooming tool
The third is the zooming control. Again, click-and-drag left or right to zoom in and out.
The maximizing tool
The fourth is the maximize button. Nothing fancy here. Just click on it and the visor will expand to occupy the whole workspace. Click on it again to return to the previous viewport setup.
The options button
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Customizing the viewport quad
For this, we will look at the top-left corner of any viewport. You will see a set of three buttons. As I said earlier, we will ignore the third button (RAY GL) and will instead focus on the other two.
If you look at the preceding screenshot, you will see the first button says Perspective. As you guessed, this button shows us information about the type of view that visor is showing. Notice that there is a different view on each of the viewports. Of course, you can change the view to the one you like. Click on that first button to see a menu of views you can switch to. There are options to change the view to the camera view or to the light view.
The second button is a bit more complex. It tells us the style of view this viewport is giving. In the preceding screenshot, you will see the list of styles you can choose. There are many, and as each have their own strong points, you will choose the one that is more useful for you depending on what you are doing.
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In the preceding screenshot, you can see the three styles side-by-side; first is the wireframe. This style lets us see what's not visible normally (the back of the model or hidden parts). It also shows us a clear understanding of the topology of the mesh.
The second style is called Advanced Open GL. It shows models with textures applied. It's useful to see our model with correctly-scaled textures applied. It also shows basic reflections in real time. This is very useful if we want to see a fast preview of our texturing, especially if we disable the wireframe in the options menu of the viewport, which is a good practice for new users to get used to from the beginning.
The third image is the reflection style. What this style shows is how the reflections will be calculated in that mesh (if we set its material to be reflective). This is very useful to see (even if the material is not reflective) how the mesh "flows", that is, if the modeling is well organized. So, if you rotate the visor in the reflection mode, you will see in real time how the reflections flow all across the model. If there is any bad modeling, the reflections will tell you. Look at the following screenshot to see the ugly reflections from a bad modeling:
Working with tabs
modo's interface is divided into different workspaces, each one contained in a tab. You can see the tabs displayed at the top of the interface. Each of the tabs refers to different kinds of things you can do with modo in a themed interface. For example, in the Animate tab, you will find all the tools and panels you will need for animating things. The same goes for every other tab, so depending on what phase of the
production you are at, you will by using at least one of these tabs. Let's take a look at the two basic tabs we will be using through out this book: Model and Render. As this book is for beginners, we will only be dealing with the Model and Render tabs in future chapters. The rest of the tabs cover more advanced tasks such as UV mapping, character rigging, and texture painting.
Working with the Model Quad tab
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This layout is divided into three main spaces:
• Tools panel: Here you can choose all the different tools to generate geometry, modify it, and so on. It is also divided into tabs (vertical tabs in this case). Don't be impressed by this "tabs-into-tabs" thing. You will notice later that this is a very practical approach to help your workflow.
• Visors quad: This is self-explanatory. This is the main workspace with four customizable visors. This is where you will be doing things most of the time. • Properties panel: This is divided into tabs as the Tools panel is, but this one gives you information about organizing the scene. Depending on what tab you are using, you will be controlling the different layers of the scene or the materials, lights, settings, and so on.
Working with the Render tab
Under the Render tab, you will see a slightly different layout aimed to work better in the rendering phase, as shown in the following screenshot:
It's basically divided into three columns, showing the following:
• Two viewports: The upper viewport is for the preview render and the bottom one to use it as a working viewport. This bottom viewport has tabs to access additional useful editors.
• Two panels: The upper panel is for controlling the items of the scene and the bottom one to work with the materials.
Understanding the Tools panel
Chapter 1
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Using the Basic tab
The Basic tab contains the basic operations for modeling. From here, you can generate primitives, manipulate your model (move, rotate, and scale), and perform other procedures that we will see later in this chapter.
So, what is a primitive? A primitive is a basic starting point from which you can build more complex models. These kind of objects are extremely basic (cubes, spheres, and the like). You can see what type of primitive you can generate just by taking a look at the buttons on the panel. You click on the Cube button, and you draw a cube; simple. There are two ways to generate a primitive:
• By using the corresponding tool: Let's say you want to create a cube. The task is simple: just click on the Cube button and start drawing the cube inside any of the visors. First draw the base and then give it some height using the controllers.
• Generating a unit primitive: If you press Ctrl and click on any of the primitives buttons, you will create a unit primitive. It's a simple shortcut to make primitive generation more simple and quick. By using this method, a standard primitive will be automatically generated without the need to draw anything.
Which method you choose for primitive creation will depend on your own preferences and the task at hand. It can often be more practical to generate a unit primitive and then modify it instead of using the tools to create a primitive of a specified size.
Using the Vertex/Edge/Polygon tabs
The Vertex tab
Under this tab, you will find many tools and operations related to vertexes:
Let me show you the main and more practical options you will find here:
• Center/Center All Axis: An axis is the imaginary line used as a reference for any of the dimensions in a 3D universe. Typically, axes are named x, y, and z (for width, height, and depth). I use this option very often. What it does is it takes all the selected vertices and places them in the center of every axis, which is the same as saying the center of the scene. This is very useful when I want to center a whole model. Just switch to vertex mode, click on Center All Axis, and the whole scene will be correctly placed in the exact center. If you use Center instead, a pop-up dialog will ask you for the axis you want your selection to be centered on. You choose which one is better for you at any given moment. • Join: This option joins two or more vertices to form a single one.
The resulting vertex will be placed exactly in the same place as the last vertex selected, so the formula will be something like "join a to b". • Join average: This is the same as Join, but the result will be a single vertex
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• Merge: This option scans the mesh looking for overlapping vertices (two or more vertices overlapping each other) and then merges them into a single vertex. It is good for cleaning your models or to automatically weld parts of the model. You can set a threshold level so only certain distances between vertices get merged.
The preceding screenshot shows how the merge distance setting can affect the mesh. From left to right, as the distance value increases, the welding pairs of points become farther from each other. Normally, the default value works well, but in case you have troubles with the tool skipping some areas, you can try to fix it by increasing the threshold, thus forcing problematic areas to be welded.
The Edge tab
The ones I like the most are as follows:
• Extend: Select an edge and click on this tool. Now, using the on-screen controls, you can control a newly generated polygon born from the selected edge. It is very useful if you want to grow your mesh from basic to complex shapes.
• Bevel: Select an edge (or a group of edges) and make them round with this tool. You can control the roundness of the beveling with the tool's properties to give it more or less definition. This is extremely handy if you want to add details to your model or generate new geometry in a existing mesh.
• Bridge: This generates a polygon connecting two edges. You select the two edges (or a group of edges), click on the tool, and they will be bridged. You can also control how the bridge works, if you want it segmented.
• Slide: Select one or more edges and move them with this tool without the need to adjust the shape of the mesh. The mesh will be dynamically updated while you drag the edges. This is a great tool for making fine adjustments to your model.
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• Remove: The best way to get rid of one or more edges is just by using the Remove button. Select the edge you want to remove and click on the tool. The edge will disappear, but preserving the mesh involved. It's different than selecting the edge and hitting the backspace key, since this last method is destructive (it removes not only the edge, but all the geometry that edge was forming part of) while the remove method is non-destructive.
The Polygon tab
Once again, we will not look at the full range of tools here, but we will focus on the most useful tools and the tools you will find most useful when you first start modeling:
• Bevel: Similar to beveling an edge, you can bevel a polygon. The Bevel tool creates a new polygon, making an inset (scaling down the polygon to its own center) of the original one combined with a shift (extruding it along its face orientation). Both inset and shift can be positive or negative depending on whether the inset/shift is applied to the outside or the inside of the polygon. It is very useful for making things such as tips of poles, modeling frames, and making holes.
• Smooth shift: This one is similar to the Bevel tool. The difference is that when dealing with curvy shapes, smooth shift seems to handle it better. My advice is that you use both tools and decide which one you like more. Personally, I prefer the simplicity of the Bevel tool, but again, it's your choice.
• Bridge: This is the same exact thing as bridging edges, but applied to polygons.
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Use this tool to make a polygon face one side or the other. This might sound silly, but it's useful when you are modeling and you find the geometry is being generated for some reason facing the wrong direction. Another good use is when you model a room and you use the Flip tool to make the floor, cellar, and walls face inside. So, when you see the model from the outside, the walls are invisible, but they get visible if you place the camera inside making it possible to have the walls not blocking the camera view.
In the previous screenshot, each polygon is facing a different direction. So, we must say its normals are opposite. The left polygon is facing the camera while the right polygon is facing the opposite direction.
Using the Duplicate tab
When dealing with modeling operations involving copying a mesh—or part of it— we will use the tools from the Duplicate tab:
The Duplicate tab is where you find the tools for everything related to making copies of the geometry or even the entire model. There are several tools here, and they are all more or less a bit advanced. Following the approach of the book, we will look at the main duplicate operations we will be using to get started with modeling. Let's check them out:
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• Clone: This is a very handy tool to create copies of an object easily. With it, you can generate a number of copies without the need of making a manual copy/ paste operation several times, thus saving you time. You can, for example, model an entire fence just by creating a single stake and making a bunch of copies in a single click. You can also use an offset value to modify the clones so that each one will be moved by the previous amount plus the offset.
• Array: This is something like an advanced clone tool. It follows the same principles as cloning but you get more control. In addition to cloning an object, you can set the axes you want to clone through, apply an offset, and so on. Imagine yourself modeling a restaurant hall. Of course you will not be modeling each table and every set of chairs. You will not even clone it a number of times. You will want to use the Array tool, modeling one single set and then cloning it in an array of, let's say, 5 x 5 elements and you're done.
Using the Mesh Edit tab
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Most of my work is based around these tools. Let me show you the most used tools you will find here:
• Edge Slice: This tool lets us draw cuts throughout the mesh as if we were using a cutting knife. You can go placing points anywhere on the surface of the mesh and they will connect themselves, creating more geometry.
• Pen Slice: This one is a variation of the Edge Slice tool. You must be working in one of the orthographic views (top, right, left, and so on) and it will let you draw freely without having to take edges, polygons, or vertices. Once the slices are done, you can switch to a perspective view to find that your slices are in fact projected to the geometry of the mesh.
• Loop Slice: Maybe the tool I use most. With this tool, you can add a slice to an entire loop in a single click. What makes this tool so powerful is that you can use it on edges or polygons or change the behavior of it if you want to change how the slices are created. We will discuss this later in more depth.
The following figure shows a clear example of what an extrusion is:
• Boolean: The Boolean tool is a very classic operation too. This tool lets you merge two different objects, forming a single mesh. The intersecting geometry is removed and a new joining geometry is created. This option has got many settings, mainly affecting its behavior, so you can make a subtraction Boolean, Intersect Boolean, adding Boolean, and so on.
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To perform a Boolean operation, you need two objects, each one in a separate layer. Select the object you want to be affected from the items list. Activate the tool and choose the Boolean mode you want for it. When you click on OK, the action will be performed and you will get the corresponding result.
Understanding the Info panel
Located in the top section, it contains two of the most important panels in modo: the items list and the shader tree.
Using the Item List panel
The Item List panel is the panel that will show you general information about the scene. It contains the list of layers that make up the scene as well as other basic items.
By default, in a newly created scene, it contains only one layer, a camera item, and a light item (a Directional Light by default). For a reference, you should have in mind that mesh layers in modo are the same as objects in most 3D packages.
Using the Shading panel
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Using the Properties panel
Located right under the Shading panel, we see the Properties panel. This is a dynamic panel that will show us information about whatever we have selected in the items list or the shading tree.
Working with selection methods
It might sound silly, but selecting and deselecting things is a task that we will be carrying out most of the time, so a solid and agile method of selection is a must if we want a fluid pipeline. Here I will show the basic and most practical selection methods in modo.
The polygon/vertex/edge modes
Look at your cursor. By default, it will show a custom shape in modo, showing a crosshair with two dots. Now press the spacebar key. The cursor changes its shape to a crosshair with a diagonal line. If you don't see a crosshair with two dots, make sure you're in the vertex mode by pressing 1 on the keyboard. Press the spacebar key one more time. Now the cursor is the same crosshair, but with a little square right next to it. What does it mean?
If you look at the top of the interface, you will see a toolbar as in the previous figure. Those five buttons change between selection modes. Depending on the selection mode you are working on, it will highlight to show you what mode you are in. We will focus on the first three modes (Vertices, Edges, and Polygons). You can click on them to change modes, but an easy shortcut is simply hitting the space key, as you just did, to cycle through them.
Needless to say, you will be working on different parts of the model depending on your selection mode. If you are in the Edges mode, you can only select and work on edges. The same goes for the vertex mode and the polygons mode.
Making quick selections
Modo has got very useful and quick methods to make selections. These selection methods can be found in the top menu under Select. I will show the main quick selection methods I use:
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• Select loop of polys: There will be times when you need to select a loop of polys. To do that quickly, just select two adjacent polys in the loop and press L. The corresponding loop of polys gets selected automatically. • Select loop of edges: This is the same procedure as for selecting connected
polys. If you want to select an entire loop of edges, just double-click on one of the edges and the corresponding loop will be selected.
• Edge ring selection: Similar to the select loop, but mainly applied to edges. When you select an edge (or a group of edges), by pressing Alt + L, all the parallel edges placed into the original loops of polys containing the edge will be selected. You can see it clearly in the following figure:
Using the Lasso selection tool
If you right-click and drag in the visor, you can draw a free-hand selection. When you release the mouse, everything inside that shape will be selected. This is what we call a lasso selection. It's a quick way to make selections manually:
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Hiding and unhiding
Isolating a selection can be a good idea when you have a very complex model and you want to focus on a specific part. You can do that in many ways, but for me, the best option is using the hide/unhide tool.
It is located under View in the upper menu. It's options are the following:
• Hide selected: In case you want to make something disappear, just select it and use this option.
• Hide unselected: This is the opposite case. If you want to isolate your selection, use this option, and the rest of the model will disappear.
• Hide invert: You can use this option to switch the visibility between what is selected and what is not. This means that if you have a selection created and you click on Hide Unselected, you will isolate that selection. But if you click on Hide Invert, your selection will disappear and what was unselected will be what is now visible.
• Unhide: Use this option to finish the isolation process. If you click on it, everything will be visible again.
Summary
We've just learned the basics about handling modo, moving through viewports, and working with selections. Also, we took a quick look at tab-based work and an overall walkthrough across the different tools for modeling.
Beginning with Modeling
Now that we know how to handle the interface, we're going to take a look at the basic principles of modeling. We will learn how to create geometry, modify it, and build our own model from scratch.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
• What's under the modeling tab? • Basic Modeling
• Modifying your mesh • Making copies • Editing the mesh • Working with vertices • Working with edges
What's under the modeling tab?
This first part will cover the main procedures to work with when you are in the modeling phase.
Layers – organizing your scene
Before you start looking at the different tools and methods of modeling, it's a good idea to have a look at the item's panel, which is located in the top-right part of the screen. This panel is a must if you want to keep your scene organized. modo uses a layers system for that, the same as Photoshop.
So you will be able to group certain parts of your model into a separate layer. Remember, always be well organized and methodical if you don't want to lose control of you model.
By default, this panel shows three different items, labeled with a well recognizable icon, as shown in the preceding screenshot. It's a nested system, so you can group items into folders and subfolders. This works exactly as a regular file browser: click an element to select it, Ctrl + click for multiple selections, and Shift + click for a ranged selection. You can group a selection by pressing the G key.
You can also move elements up and down the items tree if you want your elements visually grouped, or if you want to move them in or out of a folder.
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• Mesh: A mesh is basically a layer that contains your model, or parts of it. • Camera: We will discuss the camera in its own section, but basically, this is
the camera you will use to take a shot of your scene, as you would in real life. • Directional Light: There is only one light in a fresh new scene, and it's of the directional type unless you change it. We will not touch it now, just keep in mind that it is there for further use.
Moving, scaling, and rotating
This is an essential part of the modeling process. Apart from selecting things, the moving/scaling/rotating action is something that you will be doing most of the time:
These tools—technically named linear operators—act over the selection you have made and are controlled by an axis-based overlay showing different shapes depending on what action you're calling. You have the following four choices:
• Move (shortcut: W): This tool lets you move your selection in the 3D space across the three different axis. You can choose to move it snapped to a particular axis if you use the handles, or move it freely if you just drag-and-drop while the tool is active. Once the move action is complete, just hit the Space bar to deselect it:
The move tool
• Rotate (shortcut: E): This works the same as the move tool, but it rotates the selection across any axis you choose:
• Scale (shortcut: R): The same again, but now the action will be scaling the model. You can act over one particular axis. Let's say you drag the x axis in the scale tool; you will see how your model stretches or squeezes (depending on if you drag in one or other direction), while the rest of the axis remain untouched. You can also scale the mesh uniformly if you use the central circle of the tool, which will act over the three axes at the same time:
The scale tool
• Transform (shortcut: Y): This is the three tools combined in to a single one. If you choose it, you will be able to move, rotate, or scale the model without needing to switch between the tools:
The transform tool
Action centers
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There are several options for this, but for now, we will focus on only three of them, which I find more practical:
• Automatic: It's the default action center. The action will take place from the volumetric center of the model.
• Selection: The action center will be recalculated depending on what you have selected, so the axis of the tool you choose will not be the same as the x, y, and z of the 3D space; they will align with what you have selected. This is useful for moving something along its own facing direction.
• Custom action center: This option is not present in the action center menu, because it's always available to the user. Once you select a tool, you can work on its own handles where they are (volumetric center of the selection), but you can also set a different position for it. Maybe you want to scale an object while it's still standing on the floor: You select the Scale tool and click on the area where the chair meets the floor, so the handles will be placed there. If you click-and-drag the center circle of the tool, you will see how the chair scales up and down from the point you have established, thus not loosing contact with the floor.
Falloffs
That way you can set a linear falloff, a circular one, or whatever that suits your needs in that moment. The way to use falloffs is by clicking on its button and selecting the type of the falloff you want. There are many, but for now we will just look at the two you will be using more:
• Linear: A linear falloff makes a tool's effect more "intensive" along a distance defined by the falloff, in a completely linear way.
• Radial: The intensity of the tool affected by the falloff is ruled by a circular shape, where the most you get away from its center, the more influence will have the tool.
Work planes
Take a look at your perspective viewport. You will see two grids filling it. One is dark and horizontal—some kind of a virtual floor. The other is of a light color and intersects the first one. This white grid is what we call the work plane.
The work plane is the plane you are working on, that is your canvas. If you rotate your view, you will see how there comes a moment where the work plane changes to fit the view you are using. If you rotate the view to face the floor, the work plane will change to remain the best it can facing your view.
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There will be situations where the standard work plane will not be usable. Imagine you have a cube that is rotated, that is, its faces are not facing correctly on any of the three axes. If you want to draw a square on one of its faces, you will have two ways of doing this: you can either draw a square and then rotate it to manually match the cube rotation, or you can use the work plane. The procedure will be as follows:
Select the face of the cube where you want to draw the square, then click on the Work Plane button, and from the menu, select Align Work Plane to Selection. You will see how the work plane changes to fit exactly the orientation of the face selected. From now on, you can draw the square in that face, knowing that it will be perfectly aligned with the cube. Once you've finished drawing, just click again in the work plane menu and select Reset Work Plane.
Basic modeling
This will be the core part of the modeling phase. We will see the needed tools to create and modify your own scene. The following is the most important things you will find under the Basic tab:
Primitives
The first thing we must learn to start modeling is what we call primitives. In short words, there are two methods for creating geometry: You can create it from zero or else you can start your model by basing it on a primitive, or group of primitives.
But, what is a primitive? Think about the most basic 3D bodies. We have cubes, cylinders, spheres, and things like that, right? Those are primitives, basic bodies that you can generate quickly. In modo there are several primitives, but for a basic modeling, we will only need the most basic ones:
• Cube: You know this already; it is a 6-faced body shaped like a dice. • Sphere: A sphere, or a ball if you prefer.
The procedure to generate the primitives is basically always the same, and there are two ways:
• Drawing a primitive: Regardless of what primitive you want to create, the steps are, in general terms, drawing the base and the adding the extra dimension that makes it volumetric. For example, if you want to draw a cube, you must click on the Cube button, and then click-and-drag in your work plane to draw the base and then pull the handle corresponding to its height. Once you have the required shape, click on space to drop the tool. Of course you can always interrupt the creation process by hitting the Space bar. Let's say if you want to generate a simple plane, you can use the cube tool too, drawing the base and then dropping the tool:
Standard primitive creation buttons
• Generating a unit primitive: Instead of clicking on the Primitive button, if you use Ctrl + click, you will generate a unit primitive. This means that, without the need to draw it, a standard sized primitive will be automatically generated in the very center of the 3D space:
Unit primitive creation buttons (with Ctrl key pressed)
Free form shapes
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This will give us more control and freedom when creating our model. We are still in the Basic tab, but this time we will focus on the Pen tool.
The Pen tool might seem basic at first, but you will find this will become a very useful tool for your modeling. Let's have a look at it.
When you click in the Pen tool, you will see that as with every other tool, a bunch of options in the bottom of the panel. The main option we will see for the Pen tool is the one labeled as Make Quads.
In the preceding screenshot, you will see how the Make Quads option affects the behavior of the tool. The first polygon was generated without the Make Quads option enabled, so you just have to go placing points one after another, and a polygon will be created as you place them. When you have your polygon the way you want, hit the Space bar to drop the tool and you're done.
The Subdivide tool
The Subdivide tool is very useful for refining your mesh, giving it more definition. The way to use it is by selecting the mesh you want to smooth and clicking on the SDS Subdivide button:
You see two spheres in the following screenshot: the one on the left is unsmoothed (as it's a unit primitive) and the one on the right is after the subdivision has been applied. Looks way more smooth, but it's also heavier (it's got much more polygons).
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The Bevel tool
Applied to faces, edges, or vertices, this tool will let you smooth edges with a custom definition; inset or offset faces and round corners when applied to vertices:
The Bevel tool
This is a tool I use a lot. You can use the tool in Polygon mode as well as in Edge mode. By now, we will see its effects in the Polygon mode (the Edge Bevel tool will need a more extensive explanation later):
To use this tool, you must select a polygon, or group of them and click on the button. Once it's clicked, you will see the following two handles to control the effect:
• Inset: This is the red handle. It controls how much the polygon is contracted or expanded.
• Shift: This is the blue handle. It controls how much the polygon is shifted in or out of its original position.
The Extrude tool
With this tool you can generate new geometry by extending faces:
This one is a classic. An extrusion is a shift applied to a polygon, so you make that polygon shift out of its original mesh. Imagine a skyscraper rising up from the ground, or a floor plan expanding up so the walls start appearing. You get the idea?
To use this tool, select a polygon, click on the tool, and extrude the polygon along one of the axes (using the relevant handle). You can also extrude it freely, without being constrained to an axis, by dragging outside the handles. In this case, the work plane will rule the direction of the extrusion.
There are many uses for this tool, but, as in the example I gave you, you will use it very often when you have your floor plan modeled, and you extrude it up to make the walls.
The Bridge tool
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When dealing with a bit complex shapes, the Bridge tool will prove to be very handy. What it does is connect two polygons (or a group of polygons), in fact making a real bridge; that is, creating geometry in the process.
To use it, select the two polygons and click on the tool. They will get connected by a bridge of polygons that can be tweaked in the tool options, where you can define the number of segments of the bridge, some curvature if it's needed, and so on.
The Slice tool
With the Slice tool, you can make cuts to your mesh, thus modifying the geometry and creating new polygons from the existing ones:
This tool acts like a knife. It lets you literally cut a mesh just by defining the cut. When you click on the tool, working preferably in an orthographic view for more controllable results, just define the cut placing the start and end of it, and drop the tool. The result will be your mesh sliced exactly as you defined.
The Thicken tool
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This one is a very cool tool, one of my most used. It lets you give thickness to a flat polygon or a group of them. Just select the polygons, click on the tool and drag the blue handle to thicken it:
You may be wondering how this is different to using the Extrude tool. Well, the Extrude tool, as you read before, is good for thickening a mesh in certain cases. In general, flat surfaces, with all their polygons facing more or less (or exactly) to the same direction are more suitable to work with the Extrude tool, but the Thicken tool "reads" the differences of every polygon (in terms on where they are facing to) and make some kind of adaptive extrusion, meaning that there will be no overlapping, confusing geometry, and so on.
Modifying your mesh
In this section we will explain some tools you will use to make some tweaking to your mesh, apart from moving, scaling, or rotating it.
We will focus more on advanced tools that will make complex deformations simple, such as bending things or free-hand manipulating a mesh.
The Element move tool
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You're going to love this one. We are moving apart from the axis-based tools and getting a bit into a more "organic" workflow. The Element Move tool is for moving things, but in a different and more interesting way:
It works something like a soft pinch. When selected, you can right-click and drag to adjust its area of influence. Then you just drag parts of your model that will deform with a radial falloff applied, so you get that soft and natural deformation. This is very useful if you want to make some general tweaks to your model, especially if it's something organic.
See the following screenshot: from a default face model, I used the Element Move tool to get a kind of angry expression; done in like 10 seconds:
The Flex tool
With the Flex tool, you will be able to bend your mesh from an articulated point, as if it were a joint:
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The Sculpt tool
The Sculpt tool will let you create elevations or depressions in the mesh, freehand and in a natural way:
One of my favorites. This one works similar as the Element Move tool, but it's more like a sculpting brush, so you can go adding or subtracting volume from your mesh. As with the Element Move tool, you must right-click and drag to set brush size then you click-and-drag over your mesh. The result is not moving things, but in fact, sculpting the mesh. The volume will grow up as you brush your model. This is great to give your model the extra punch of realism if you want to make things such as clothes, wrinkles, and so on.
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Making copies
In this section we will see some tools for duplicating things. There are certain cases when you will need to work in scenes that will contain many copies of the same object, due to the own nature of the scene. Things such as a cinema hall (with a lot of seats), or a classroom (with a desk for every student), or in general, scenarios where you will have to deal with numerous copies of identical elements will get benefit from using the tools shown in the following screenshot:
The Mirror tool
This tool is very appropriate when working with symmetrical models, such as faces. But there are more situations where you will find symmetry without such advanced modeling as a human face. Think about a bed with two night tables on each side, a set of headphones, a lot of furniture designs... symmetry is all around us:
The easiest way to apply symmetry is doing it based on an axis. If you have your model perfectly centered, the axis of it will be the same as the axis of the 3D space, which is the default for this tool. So, select what you want to mirror, tick the axis you want your mirroring into and click on Apply. The action will complete in the same way that you can see in the preceding screenshot.
The Clone tool
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This is another way to duplicate things without the need to copy/paste each element:
If you click on this tool, you will see a handle with three axes like in the rest of the tools, and if you drag any of them, a clone of the original mesh will be generated (based on the number of copies you state in the tool's properties). There are two methods of generating a clone line:
• Additive method: It's the default for this tool. Drag the handle to establish the distance you want between each copy, and then go increasing the number of copies in the tool's properties, so you will get a line of clones that becomes longer as you raise the number.
Making arrays
This one is a powerful tool for duplicating objects, more complex than cloning or copy/pasting geometry:
An array is a matrix. It's a more advanced version of the Clone tool, since the Clone tool lets you make copies in a linear pattern, the array tool is good to expand the copies along the three axes, in a 3-dimensional pattern. It works more or less like the Clone tool, but if you go dragging the handles, you will control every dimension of the cloning independently:
The amount of copies for each axis can be controlled too by the Properties panel of the tool. There are the following two variations of this:
• Array: It makes copies linearly across all the three axes.
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Editing the mesh
The Mesh Edit tab contains several tools for, in general terms, adding geometry to your mesh to go on adding more detail.
Let me show you the most interesting and useful tools you will find here:
Curve Slice and Loop Slice
The following screenshot shows the use of the Curve Slice tool. As you can see, you can make cuts with curvy shapes:
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This second screenshot shows the use of the Loop Slice tool. This tool makes a slice call across a loop of polygons. The easiest use would be selecting an edge to cut across it. When you click on the tool, a slice will be generated across the entire loop corresponding to that edge.
It's a very customizable tool. In its Properties panel you will find options to set the kind of slice you want, numbers of it, and so on. The main variations for this tool are:
• Count: Use this parameter to establish the number of slices you need. • Symmetry: One the slicing modes. It places the cuts symmetrically along
the loop sliced.
• Free: While generating the slice, you can freely move it in order to place it where you need it.
Booleans
This is a classic operation in 3D modeling. Although it can generate some thrash geometry, it is always good to know how to use it and when:
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Let's take a look at the different kind of Booleans we have available in modo:
• Add: You add one mesh to another, resulting in a combined mesh. • Subtract: You subtract the volume of one mesh from the other, usually
resulting in holes and cavities.
• Intersect: The resulting mesh will be the common volume between the two involved meshes. As the new states, where they intersect.
The way to use this tool is as follows:
1. First you must have two meshes. We will call them A (passive mesh) and B (active mesh). This means that B will act over A, and they will each be in its separate layer.
2. Then activate the Boolean tool. From the pop-up dialog, you can choose the Boolean type you need, accept it, and the operation will be done, giving you the result depending on the type you selected.
In general terms, Booleans are not the best way if you want to get a clean flowing mesh, because it's an automatic process and there will be situations where it doesn't work quite well due to the generation of trash geometry, or problems with the geometry itself. This would happen in complex meshes, but the tool will work very nicely when simpler meshes are involved.
In the following screenshot, you will see the result of each different Boolean between a sphere and a cube (from left-to-right: original meshes, add, subtract, and intersect):
Drills
Although there are various drill tools, we will focus on the Axis Drill tool. If the Boolean tool is useful to make holes in solid meshes, the drill tool does the same, but it's more efficient when trying to modify flat planes (or not enclosed meshes in general):
The same principle is applied: have your two meshes in separate layers and pick the drill mode you need. The passive mesh will be drilled with the shape of the active mesh. The following are the different drilling methods you can use:
• Tunnel: Makes an empty hole in the mesh.
• Core: The opposite to the tunnel mode. Removes everything out of the drilling shape in the passive mesh.
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Examine how the different methods work (from left-to-right: tunnel, core and stencil):
Mesh Cleanup
A nice help when refining your mesh is the Mesh Cleanup tool. It will do all the tedious work for you:
Keep in mind that although it's a great tool, it's not a magic wand. It's an automatic process, and means that it can work, but not perfectly. I personally use it to clean an imported mesh from other software. Given that exporting to another format usually generates a lot of trash geometry or errors, especially when working with complex models, this tool is a must-have right after loading that exported file.
You can too use it to make an automatic check of your mesh, if you feel (or see) that there is something wrong that you cannot point at.
Working with vertices
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Centering
In order to have a well organized mesh, it's important to work with the centering tool that will align your selection. Using the centering tool applied to vertices is always a good idea, because vertices gives you more control at the time of selecting areas from your model. Selecting an area using polygons or edges can give you certain troubles because they are not really too precise, but vertices are. So, my advice is to use the Vertex mode with this tool:
To use it, make a selection of the vertices you want to center and click on the tool. The pop-up dialog will ask you for the axis (or group of axis) you want them aligned to. Select the one you need and click on OK. Then your selection will be aligned to the very center of the axis selected.
You also have an extra tool for this, located just under the Center Vertices tool called Center All Axis. It's some kind of shortcut to a complete centering. If you click on this tool, your selection will be aligned to the very center of the 3D space.
Setting position
Merging
This tool is related to cleaning a mesh. After a work session, it is not unusual for you (as a human) make mistakes. There can be some overlapping vertices, some trash geometry, maybe you forgot to weld some parts, and so on. This tool will help you to merge every group of vertices that are overlapping. You can use it too, for welding parts of the model in an automated manner.
You have the following two options for this tool:
• Automatic: It merges vertices automatically and is based in a default threshold distance. It normally works well.
• Fixed: It does the same thing, but is based on a user-defined threshold, in case you want this tool to be more exhaustive, merging vertices that are a little more offsetted than the default distance.
Working with edges
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Bevel
Don't waste time manually smoothing and refining edges. This tool will do it for you quick and easy:
Bridge
With this tool, you can connect an edge or a group of it with another, creating new faces in the process:
Bridging edges is also a great option when modeling. It lets you connect parts of the model automatically. To bridge two edges, simply select them and click on the tool to get them connected. One of the quick ways to do this is, when the selection is done, right-click on one of the edges and select Bridge from the context menu:
Slide
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This one is a tool to modify the placement of an edge or a group of them. The main benefit of this tool is that you can move edges in a non-destructive way, so they will preserve the main topology of the mesh in the best way possible.
The most common case to use this tool is when you need to replace an entire loop of edges. This can be done easily and securely with this tool. Select the edge loop you want to slide (remember that double-click an edge selects all the loops), then click on the tool and drag in the visor. You will see how the loop slides back and forth without distorting the mesh (or at least not distorting it very much).
Summary
After some practicing with the tools and tips provided in this chapter, you should be now ready to create your own basic geometry. Feel free to experiment with it to transform this experience to more interesting and complex modeling projects.
Texturing and Materials
Th
